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Palestinian Urges Defiance; Plan to Grab Arafat Reported

Marwan Barghouti, a rising Palestinian leader on trial in Israel on charges of terrorism, today called on Palestinians throughout the West Bank to defy Israeli curfews, and an Israeli newspaper reported that the army has rehearsed an operation to snatch and deport Yasir Arafat.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has repeatedly sought to exile Mr. Arafat, whom he considers Israel's enemy, but most of Israel's top security officials have opposed the move and the coalition government has blocked it.

Mr. Barghouti, the top West Bank official of Mr. Arafat's Fatah faction, appeared today for a third hearing in advance of his trial on charges of planning attacks that left 26 Israelis dead and scores wounded. Mr. Barghouti has denied the charges and rejected Israel's authority to try him.

The trial is shaping up as a showdown between Israeli officials out to demonstrate links between mainstream Palestinian leaders and terrorism, and one of the most articulate of those leaders, who is trying to put the Israeli occupation itself in the dock. Mr. Barghouti's lawyers distributed his own 54-count indictment of Israel today.

Today's hearing, to evaluate a prosecution request to extend Mr. Barghouti's confinement, was once again marked by tumult inside and outside the Tel Aviv courtroom. Families of some Israeli victims scuffled outside with the police.

As Mr. Barghouti was brought in shackles into the courtroom, he called out, ''I say one thing: The intifada will be victorious over the occupation.'' He clasped his chained hands over his head and shook them, smiling at supporters.

He was drowned out by bereaved Israelis screaming, ''They shouldn't give you the right to speak!'' and ''They should castrate you!''

One of Mr. Barghouti's lawyers, Shamai Leibowitz, an Israeli, compared him to Moses. Speaking of Moses, he said, ''According to some lawyers, he should be called a terrorist, but according to Exodus, he is a freedom fighter.'' Mr. Leibowitz argued that Moses killed an Egyptian not because he hated Egyptians but because the man was beating a fellow Jew.

Mr. Barghouti smiled, but Yaakov Shemesh, who lost his brother and pregnant sister-in-law in a bombing in Jerusalem earlier this year, shouted at the lawyer, ''How dare you call yourself a Jew?''

Zvi Garfinkel, the chief judge of the three-judge panel, cut Mr. Leibowitz off, saying, ''You can read me this story on Passover, not here.''

At one point in today's proceedings, Mr. Barghouti said, ''This isn't a court -- this is a carnival.'' Access by the news media to the courtroom was restricted to a pool of reporters.

Mr. Barghouti calls himself a political leader, not a military one. He has said he supports attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territory Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, but not against civilians inside pre-1967 Israeli borders.

In a statement, Mr. Barghouti said, ''What is on trial today is the conscience of all freedom-loving people around the world.'' He said that his crime was not terrorism but ''that I insist on my freedom, freedom for my children, freedom for the entire Palestinian people. And if indeed that is a crime, I'd probably plead guilty.''

Before the current conflict began two years ago, Mr. Barghouti, who speaks Hebrew and Englishfluently, was regarded in Israel as a serious Palestinian advocate of a two-state solution. Some Palestinians suspect that Israel, in choosing to make Mr. Barghouti such a high-profile defendant, is trying to build up his credentials among ordinary Palestinians as a fighter to improve his chances of ultimately succeeding Mr. Arafat.

Israeli officials say the truth is simpler and uglier, calling Mr. Barghouti a terrorist whose trial will establish direct links between Mr. Arafat and the violence.

The Israeli newspaper Maariv reported today that the army has practiced an operation forcing Mr. Arafat into exile by taking him to a secret place by helicopter. The newspaper said the army has even scouted a destination, which it described as ''an isolated location without any population or settlement in the near vicinity,'' and added that the plan ''is ready for immediate operation with very short notice.''

An army spokesman said he could not confirm or deny the report.

On becoming prime minister in March 2001, Mr. Sharon privately promised President Bush that he would not harm Mr. Arafat. That promise, in part, has blocked the option of forcing Mr. Arafat into exile because security officials have warned that an attempt to capture the Palestinian leader could result in his injury or death.

Israel has repeatedly besieged Mr. Arafat inside his headquarters this year, destroying most of the Palestinian leader's official compound in Ramallah, on the West Bank, and Mr. Bush has backed Mr. Sharon's demand that Mr. Arafat be replaced before negotiations resume. But Israel was forced to abandon its latest siege this week after the Bush administration criticized it as hurting the chances of Palestinian democratic change as well as the American president's efforts to rally support for a possible war on Iraq.

Israel has now seized military control of six of the eight major Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank, imposing curfews on hundreds of thousands of people. In Jenin today, an Israeli tank fired into a vegetable market where Palestinians were reportedly violating the curfew, Palestinians said. A 45-year-old vendor was killed, and three other people were wounded.

The Israeli Army said that its troops had responded after being fired on, and that it was investigating the incident.